


Honest

by rhodrymavelyne



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:07:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26197597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodrymavelyne/pseuds/rhodrymavelyne
Summary: Will observes Hannibal in his gilded cage, how he is both different and the same while Hannibal as always watches Will, offering his own observations…and insight.
Relationships: Alana Bloom/Hannibal Lecter, Molly Graham/Will Graham, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Kudos: 7





	Honest

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place during the Red Dragon arc. I don’t own Hannibal but for months it has owned me.

He used to wear suits of plaid most men couldn’t pull off, yet he gave an air of distinguishment to. No, more than distinguishment. A low-key, elegant seductiveness. No wonder Alana had fallen into his arms. 

Now here he stood in the unflattering jumpsuit of a mental patient, yet he carried himself in the same elegant fashion, a king among monsters. There was an openess to his expression, an ease to to his smile I hadn’t recalled seeing in his office. Not very often. 

“Is it easier?” I took a step closer to the glass. I felt as if I could pass through it, step inside his cage, into his world. The glass was no barrier. The only barrier was myself. “To no longer pretend? To be open about who and what you are?”

“It is always easier not to pretend. You know that.” His eyes fix upon me, their gaze seeping through my skin, even as his voice seeks out the secret crevices within my ears. Somehow he manages to invade every part of me, even when I convince myself I’m keeping a safe distance. “In the end, I realized I didn’t truly care what other people thought. Not like I cared about you.”

Yes, it always comes back to him and me, no matter how many people stand between us, no matter how far I stand away. There are no safe distances with Hannibal. 

“Are you accustomed to pretending, Will?” He moves closer to the glass, only the glass is no longer there. We are in his office. We are in the Norman Chapel. We are in all of these places, even though we’ve never left his cage. I can feel his Mind Palace gliding through barriers, reaching out to engulf me, embrace me. “Or do you try to be honest with your wife and child, as honest as you can be?”

“As honest as I can be.” I have to force myself not to smile. I’m sure my eyes are betraying me the way they always do around Hannibal. I can tell by the way a knowing smile tugs at his lips. 

“Not completely.” He allows the smile to grow. “How could you be?” 

How could be honest with them when a part of you is still mine? He doesn’t say it. He doesn’t need to. 

“I told you before. I prefer sins of omission to outright lies.” He’s got me on the defensive or did I want to talk about this? “I don’t expect my family to tell me everything either.”

“Is that your definition of a good father, Will? You were so certain you’d be a good one.” He’s definitely amused now. “You never answered if you were.”

“I’m a better father than mine ever was.” Let him savor that personal tidbit. Let it distract him. “What sort of father was the Red Dragon’s?”

“The same sort of father as mine.” Hannibal thinned his lips, his smile vanishing from them. “Absent.” 

“Which is better? To be absent or to be a destructive presence?” I thought of Abigail. How much Garrett Jacob Hobbs had loved her. Would she have been happier if he’d never been part of her life? How undamaged would she have been, or would she have known a different kind of damage, the sort Hannibal and perhaps the Red Dragon internalized and took out on the world? 

“You tell me.” Hannibal allowed his mouth to soften. “You and Abigail knew more about the destructive presence than I ever did.”

“You once said we had to serve Abigail better than Garrett Jacob Hobbs.” You were the destructive presence for her. I didn’t say it. I didn’t have to. “Can you truly claim to have served her better?”

“No.” He bowed his head. “No more than I claim Abigail was happier to have never known either of us or you.”

It was my turn to bow my head. I’d forgiven him for taking Abigail from me or I thought I had. This didn’t mean I wasn’t still riddled with regrets. 

Part of me had been attracted to the idea of being part of a family with Hannibal and Abigail. This may be why when I’d formed a family of my own with Molly, Walter, and the dogs, we were brought together by trauma and memories. Molly and Walter had the ghost of their former father and husband while I had Abigail. And Hannibal. There was always Hannibal. 

“The Red Dragon never chooses a family like ours,” I murmured. “They’re always a husband, a wife, and children.”

“Rather like the family you chose.” Hannibal cocked his head. “I wonder if your reasons aren’t similar.” 

If I closed my eyes, I’d smell gunpowder. I’d see Garrett Jacob Hobbs bleeding against the kitchen wall or perhaps my father. I’d see Abigail bleeding on the floor, or myself as a child, shivering, splattered with blood. 

Somehow I’d always ended up splattered with blood. When had it become normal?

Garrett Jacob Hobbs turned his head to hiss in my father’s voice, “See? See? You are a witch child. The devil will find you. The devil will take you.”

Perhaps my father had been right in the end. 

“Poor Will.” Hannibal sounded genuinely compassionate. He looked downright loving while he gazed at me. “You suffer so much over things you simply cannot change.” 

I almost laughed at this. Frightening, how easily Hannibal drew smiles and laughter out of me, even now. 

I had to go. I had to get out of here. 

Even if I did, I wouldn’t get away. I was beginning to wonder if I ever had, if I’d simply put off the inevitable. 

Just start walking and hope for the best.

**Author's Note:**

> The reference to preferring sins of omission involves what Will said to Hannibal in Hannibal Season 2: Su-Zakana. The one to Garrett Jacob Hobb’s death is a call-back to Hannibal Season 1: Apertíf. The image of Will’s father lying dead where Hobbs lay involves a fannish invention of my own, that Will’s mother shot Will’s father the way Will shot Garrett Jacob Hobbs. It was triggered by Hannibal’s comment in Hannibal Season 1: Oef that Will would find both he and Hannibal had a great deal in common with Abigail, along with his suspicions that Will’s mother, the issues involving Will’s mother was fruit hanging on a high branch, very difficult to reach. Will's certainty that he would be a good father was expressed in Hannibal Season 2: Ko No Mono. Hannibal asking Will if he was a good father to Walter happened during Hannibal Season 3: And the Woman Clothed With Sun. Will's statement that he's riddled with regrets was expressed in Hannibal Season 2: Shii-zakana.


End file.
